As someone who is passionate about technology, this is my blog designed to help educate people about social media. As well, I want to use this social media forum to bring our growing tech community together.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

How can you tell if you have dog owners? Simple, just ask them to bark

When Tina Cannon, the chief executive officer of petsMD, made her presentation at the Austin Innotech Beta Summit today, she asked a crowded room to show her if they were dog owners by barking loudly.

Sure enough, the room filled with barks. And, then without any solicitation, there was a large round of meows.

Cannon’s company is similar in scope to webMD in that it allows pet owners to ask questions about their pet’s health. Her company was one of six firms.

Other Beta finalists included:

BuzzStream, a social media company that helps companies build relationships with online influencers;

GameSalad, a game development firm that provides a game development tool for nonprogrammers;

Gelato, an online dating site that had one of my friends who is happily married to comment that if he wasn’t married he would use the site;

Infochimps, a web site designed to find any data set in the world;

and Spredfast, a social media campaign platform.

If you are a small tech business in San Antonio, please reach out to me if you want to participate in the 2010 San Antonio Beta Summit. Last year, thanks to the help of the San Antonio Greater Chamber of Commerce, we held our first event. It’s my hope that the chamber will step up and participate in this event again.